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Unwanted Slaves: The Punishment of Transportation and the Making of Legal Subjects in Early Nineteenth-Century Martinique

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13621020500525928

1469-3593

John Savage,

American History and Culture

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the editors of this volume for their insightful comments and suggestions, and acknowledge the generous Financial support of the Gipson Institue for 18th Century Studies and the Franz/Class of 1968 Junior Faculty Fellowship at Lehigh University that aided in the completion of research for this article. Notes 1 Archives Nationales, Centre d'Archives d'Outre Mer (hereafter CAOM) FM SG Mart. 161/1479, Mode de remboursement des nègres justiciés. The Council's decision to use the punishment of transportation meant that the slaves would be jailed for some time while accommodations were made for their expulsion. Even this brief period of incarceration was too long for two of the slaves, who died while in custody. The Council was ultimately forced to return to the case in order to rule on whether M. Asselin had a right to public compensation for his lost slaves. 2 Martinique was one French island that did not have the brief experience of emancipation in the revolutionary period. For demographic and social statistics on the French Caribbean in this period, see Nicolas (1996 Nicolas, A. 1996. Histoire de la Martinique des Arawaks à 1848, Paris: L'Harmattan. [Google Scholar]), Gisler (1991), Fallope (1992 Fallope, J. 1992. Esclaves et citoyens: les noirs à la Guadeloupe au XIXe siècle dans le processus de résistance et d'intégration, 1802–1910, Basse Terre: Société d'Histoire de la Guadeloupe. [Google Scholar]), Chauleau (1979 Chauleau, L. 1979. La Vie Quotidienne aux Antilles Françaises au Temps de Victor Schoelcher, Paris: Hachette. [Google Scholar]), Tomich (1996), King (2001 King, S. 2001. Blue Coat or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-Revolutionary Saint Domingue, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. [Google Scholar]) and Dubois (2004 Dubois, L. 2004. A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. [Google Scholar]). 3 Recent scholarship has emphasized the limits and pathologies of French administration in the colonies, as well as the difficulty of establishing a neat division between metropolitan and colonial interests. See especially Banks (2002 Banks, K. 2002. Chasing Empire Across the Sea: Communications and the State in the French Atlantic, 1713–1763, Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. [Google Scholar]), Moogk (2000 Moogk, P. 2000. La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada, A Cultural History, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. [Google Scholar]) and Pérotin-Dumon (2001 Pérotin-Dumon, A. 2001. La Ville aux Iles, la Ville dans l'Ile: Basse-Terre et Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, 1650–1820, Paris: Karthala. [Google Scholar]). 4 For example, Moitt (2001 Moitt, B. 2001. Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635–1848, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. [Google Scholar]); Fallope (1992 Fallope, J. 1992. Esclaves et citoyens: les noirs à la Guadeloupe au XIXe siècle dans le processus de résistance et d'intégration, 1802–1910, Basse Terre: Société d'Histoire de la Guadeloupe. [Google Scholar]); Gautier (1985 Gautier, A. 1985. Les Soeurs de Solitude: La Condition Féminine dans l'Esclavage aux Antilles du XVIIe au XIXe siècle, Paris: Éditions Caribéennes. [Google Scholar]). For the general framework of resistance, see Craton (1997 Craton, M. 1997. “Forms of resistance to slavery”. In The Slave Societies of the Caribbean, Edited by: Knight, F. London: Macmillan. [Google Scholar]). 5 Recent scholarship has paid particular attention to the connection between the conditions of slave society and the nature of citizenship in post-emancipation societies. See especially Cooper et al., (2000 Cooper, F., Holt, T. and Scott, R. 2000. Beyond Slavery: Explorations of Race, Labor and Citizenship in Postemancipation Societies, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. [Google Scholar]), Stanley (1998 Stanley, A. 1998. From Bondage to Contract: Wage Labor, Marriage, and the Market in the Age of Slave Emancipation, New York: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Paton (2004 Paton, D. 2004. No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780–1870, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Google Scholar]), Fallope (1992 Fallope, J. 1992. Esclaves et citoyens: les noirs à la Guadeloupe au XIXe siècle dans le processus de résistance et d'intégration, 1802–1910, Basse Terre: Société d'Histoire de la Guadeloupe. [Google Scholar]), Dubois (2004 Dubois, L. 2004. A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. [Google Scholar]) and Tomich (2004 Tomich, D. 2004. Through the Prism of Slavery: Labor, Capital and World Economy, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, Inc. [Google Scholar]). 6 Major works that have informed our understanding of this dynamic include Tomich (1990 Tomich, D. 1990. Slavery in the Circuit of Sugar: Martinique and the World Economy, 1830–1848, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. [Google Scholar]), Fallope (1992 Fallope, J. 1992. Esclaves et citoyens: les noirs à la Guadeloupe au XIXe siècle dans le processus de résistance et d'intégration, 1802–1910, Basse Terre: Société d'Histoire de la Guadeloupe. [Google Scholar]), Debbasch (1967 Debbasch, Y. 1967. Couleur et Liberté, Paris: Dalloz. [Google Scholar]), Pérotin-Dumon (2000), Gisler (1981 Gisler, A. 1981. L'Esclavage aux Antilles Françaises, XVIIe-XIXe siècle, Paris: Karthala. [Google Scholar]), Nicolas (1996 Nicolas, A. 1996. Histoire de la Martinique des Arawaks à 1848, Paris: L'Harmattan. [Google Scholar]), Fick (1990 Fick, C. 1990. The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below, Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press. [Google Scholar]), King (2001 King, S. 2001. Blue Coat or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-Revolutionary Saint Domingue, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. [Google Scholar]), Chauleau (1979 Chauleau, L. 1979. La Vie Quotidienne aux Antilles Françaises au Temps de Victor Schoelcher, Paris: Hachette. [Google Scholar]) and Dubois (2004 Dubois, L. 2004. A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. [Google Scholar]). 7 CAOM FM SG Mart. 52/431, Mémoire Rivière, 1829; FM SG 78/638, Extrait des registres du greffe de la cour royale, Sept. 5, 1816, «Remontrance du Procureur Général relative aux nègres marrons». On the importance of service in the militias and maréchaussées to the identity of free people of color, see King (2001 King, S. 2001. Blue Coat or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-Revolutionary Saint Domingue, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. [Google Scholar]). 8 Code de la Martinique, 8, pp. 8–10, Ministère de la Marine, Dépeche Ministérielle # 4248, 25 Feb. 1824. 9 Code de la Martinique, 8, p. 10, Ministère de la Marine, Depeche ministérielle, # 4248, 25 Feb. 1824. 10 Code de la Martinique, 8, p. 272, Decision of 1 Aug. 1826. 11 CAOM FM SG Mart. 52/431, Mémoire Rivière, 1829. 12 CAOM FM SG Mart. 52/430, report of Sept. 28, 1822. 13 By the same token, it was forbidden to any captain of a boat to take a slave aboard without written permission. Code de la Martinique, 7, p. 112, # 2116, 17 Nov. 1819, Ordonnance du Governeur administrateur pour la répression de l'embauchage et enlèvement des esclaves. A ministerial dispatch of 1824 also emphasized the need to limit the ability of slaves to travel abroad while accompanying their masters, with or without permission, arguing that “agriculture has suffered irreparable losses” due to tolerance for such practices, since slaves serving their masters in this way “lose the habit of working the land and return to plantations with ideas of freedom harmful to order and the colonial regime”. Code de la Martinique, 8, p. 11, Ministère de la Marine, Dépeche ministérielle, # 4248, 25 Feb. 1824. This law was, no doubt, at least partially directed at those slave owners who were attempting to leave the island with a substantial portion of their fortune in the form of slaves in order to avoid repaying creditors. In fact, a number of planters threatened this action if metropolitan administrators continued to insist on immediate debt repayment—CAOM FM SG Martinique 140/1268 Rapport général à son Excellence Monseigneur le Ministre secrétaire d'état de al Marine et des Colonies par le Commissaire de justice envoyé à la Martinique en vertu de l'ordonnance du Roi du 19 novembre 1819 (1821) (hereafter Rapport Delamardelle). In a specific example of how this worked, one creditor was awarded six slaves by the Royal Court as part of a debt settlement, but the debtor then declared his slaves to have escaped. It was only after some time that the court was able to determine that the slaves had been sold to a third party—CAOM FM SG Martinique, Greffes du Tribunal de 1er Instance de Fort de France, 1809-1820, case of 3 Dec. 1817. 14 Code de la Martinique, 8, p. 478, # 4611, 7 Aug. 1827; CAOM FM SG 78/638, Extrait des registres du greffe de la cour royale, 5 Sept. 1816. 15 Code de la Martinique 5, pp. 735–736, # 1485, Dépeche concernant les négres marrons et les dénombrements des esclaves. A ministerial decision of January 1826 noted that processing the sales of these unclaimed slaves was expensive, and recommended that the sales be taken over by the administration rather than the courts in the interest of keeping costs down. Code de la Martinique, 8, p. 203, Dépeche ministérielle relative à a vente des nègres épaves, 27 Jan. 1826. 16 CAOM FM SG Martinique 88/726 Extraits du registre des procès verbaux des déliberations du conseil privé, Jan. 9, 1828. 17 CAOM FM SG Martinique 88/726 Extraits du registre des procès verbaux des déliberations du conseil privé, 9 Jan. 1828. 18 CAOM FM SG Martinique 88/726, session of 7 July 1829. Already in 1816, a remonstrance was filed claiming that “the majority of planters complained” about abuses committed by bounty hunters; see CAOM FM SG Martinique 78/638, Extrait des registres du greffe de la Cour royale, 5 Sept. 1816. 19 For an extraordinary example of this kind of relationship from a grand blanc in this period, see Dessalles (1996 Dessalles, P. 1996. Sugar and Slavery, Family and Race: The Letters and Diary of Pierre Dessalles, Planter in Martinique, 1808–1856, Edited by: Forster, E. and Forster, R. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. [Google Scholar]). 20 Code de la Martinique, 8, p. 462, # 4596, arrêté du gouverneur, 8 July 1827; see also Gazette de la Martinique, 10 Nov. 1827. 21 Code de la Martinique, 8, p.250, # 4440, 30 May 1826. The agreement led to announcements such as the one published in the Gazette de la Martinique of 10 Oct. 1827, in which authorities in Dominica state that a dozen escaped slaves from Martinique, most of whom refused to give their master's name, were in jail waiting to be claimed. 22 Cited in Debbasch (1961 Debbasch, Y. 1961. Le marronage: essai sur la desertion de l'esclave antillais. L'Année Sociologique, 11: 29–99. [Google Scholar]). Cases of attempted escape can be found in CAOM DPPC Greffes des Tribunaux, Cour d'Assises, Martinique 1830–1835 Gr. 908; see, for example, sessions of 21 Feb. 1831; 4 Dec. 1831; and 20 Aug. 1832. 23 CAOM FM SG—Mart. 140/1268, Rapport Delamardelle. 24 CAOM FM SG—Mart. 140/1268, Rapport Delamardelle 25 CAOM FM SG Mart. 78/638, Projet de Code Penal des esclaves, exposé des motifs. 26 CAOM FM SG Mart. 52/431, reports of 24 Aug. 1827 and 27 March 1830. 27 CAOM FM SG Mart. 78/638, Projet de Code Penal des esclaves, exposé des motifs. On the ordinances of 9 Feb. 1827, and 24 Sept. 1828, see Fallope (1992, pp. 62–69; 233–235). 28 CAOM FM SG Mart., 123/1101 Deportation d'individus dangereux, 1819–1822, Letter of 9 Sept. 1822. 29 CAOM FM SG Mart., 42/346, Police des esclaves, Esclaves dangereux, Déportations au Senegal et à Porto Rico, 1827–1845. Cf. Debbasch (1963, p. 182). 30 See, for example, the case of Odelan described in report of 4 Aug 1827, CAOM FM SG Mart. 42/346 Police des esclaves; Esclaves dangereux, deportations au Senegal et a Porto Rico, 1827–1845. 31 CAOM FM SG Mart., 42/346 – Police des esclaves; Esclaves dangereux, deportations au Senegal et a Porto Rico, 1827–1845, report of director gal de l'int of 22 juin 1827 and séance du 9 juillet 1827. 32 CAOM FM SG Martinique 42/348-350 33 CAOM FM SG Mart., 42/346, Police des esclaves, Esclaves dangereux, Déportations au Senegal et à Porto Rico, 1827–1845. The court had to struggle with the level of compensation, how it should be financed, and how to accord compensation in cases where slaves died while being arrested or while in jail awaiting trial, or even in the case when a slave was condemned to the galleys but later escaped. C 161 D 1479 Mode de remboursement des negres justicié; Gazette de la Martinique, 3 Jan. 1827. 34 CAOM FM SG Mart. 42/346 Police des esclaves; Esclaves dangereux, deportations au Senegal et à Porto Rico, 1827–1845 report of 3 June 1828. 35 CAOM FM SG Mart. 42/346 Police des esclaves; Esclaves dangereux, deportations au Senegal et à Porto Rico, 1827–1845, report of 28 Feb. 1828. 36 CAOM FM SG Mart. 42/346, Police des esclaves, Esclaves dangereux, Déportations au Senegal et à Porto Rico, 1827–1845. See also CAOM FM SG Mart. 141/1271, letter of 28 May 1830, which shows the objections of the government of Senegal to having dangerous blacks sent from the Antilles. Local authorities would continue to demand the right to use deportation through the mid-1830s, see CAOM FM SG 78/638, Projet de Code Pénal des esclaves, 1835. 37 CAOM FM SG Mart. 42/346 Police des esclaves; Esclaves dangereux, deportations au Senegal et à Porto Rico, 1827–1845 38 CAOM FM SG Mart. 42/346 Police des esclaves; Esclaves dangereux, deportations au Senegal et à Porto Rico, 1827–1845 deliberations of private council, 5 Nov. 1829. 39 CAOM FM SG Mart. 42/346 Police des esclaves; Esclaves dangereux, deportations au Senegal et à Porto Rico, 1827–1845 40 CAOM FM SG Mart. 42/346 Police des esclaves; Esclaves dangereux, deportations au Senegal et à Porto Rico, 1827–1845, deliberations of private council, 5 Nov. 1829. On the problem of deported slaves returning to the island to see family members, see the case of Psyché, CAOM FM SG Mart. 141/1273, 3 Dec. 1831. 41 Cf. the case of Sophie, who was given a temporary reprieve of her death sentence due to her declaration of pregnancy. Like a number of the slaves mentioned in these records, she is later lost in the system and cannot be relocated, CAOM FM SG, Mart. 141/1270. 42 Courrier de la Martinique # 27, 2 July 1833. 43 CAOM FM SG 33/285-286 Etat Collectif des sevices envers des esclaves, 1845–8. These records show how few of the cases were actually pursued by the courts. Many were abandoned due to the inability to document the severity of beatings or other punishment. The court often found itself faced with a slave owner denying any mistreatement and only the testimony of slaves to consider as counter evidence. See also cases in CAOM FM SG Mart. 33/286 Affaire Dispagne, in which a well-documented case of extreme cruelty resulted only in a 16-day prison sentence and a 200-franc fine. See also CAOM FM SG Mart. 42/347 Esclaves dangereux, Correspondance générale, 1832–1847 44 Bissette's journal, the Revue des Colonies, later wrote of the impact of “the almost systematic acquittals that afflicted the public conscience”. “Rapport fait au nom de la commission chargée d'examiner le projet de loi concernant la composition des cours d'assises dans les colonies françaises”, Revue des Colonies XII, 1847, p. 228. 45 “Compte Rendu de l'exécution des lois des 18 et 19 juillet 1845 sur le régime des esclaves”, Revue Coloniale XI, 1845, p. 431.